Sunday, 18 June 2017

Spider-Man: Homecoming Box Office Is Tracking Lower Than Expected

Last month, box office analysts started long-range tracking for Sony and Marvel's highly-anticipated Spider-Man: Homecoming, predicting a huge box office opening weekend of $135 million. This projection far exceeds the debuts of the last two Spider-Man movies, 2012's The Amazing Spider-Man ($62 million) and 2014's The Amazing Spider-Man 2 ($91.6 million). As we get closer and closer to the July 7 release date, more tracking figures have come in, and they're significantly lower than the earlier projections.

Deadline reports that box office analysts are predicting an opening weekend between $90 million and $108 million for Spider-Man: Homecoming. The report states that these are from industry trackers, and don't represent the actual studio projections from Sony Pictures. These industry analysts report that the movie is "strong across the board," tracking well with all age demographics, but, as is the case with most superhero movies, it's tracking particularly strong among young males, most likely due to the rising star power of Tom Holland. The movie is also tracking strongly with families.

While the lower tracking figures may be disappointing, box office tracking certainly isn't an exact science. Early estimates for Wonder Woman projected a debut between $65 million and $80 million, with the movie ending up earning an impressive $103.2 million, the highest box office debut for a female-directed movie, putting filmmaker Patty Jenkins in the record books. Box office tracking was also wildly off for 20th Century Fox's Deadpool last year, with many industry analysts projecting a debut in the $50 million range, which would have been a strong debut for an R-rated superhero movie. Deadpool ended up breaking the record for the highest R-rated opening weekend with $132.4 million, en route to $363 million domestic and a record-breaking $783.1 million worldwide. With all of that being said, it's certainly possible that Spider-Man: Homecoming, which starts a new Spider-Man trilogy, will actually debut much higher than this projection.

When Marvel struck a deal with Sony Pictures to share the rights to the beloved Spider-Man character, there were early indications that Marvel was going to take a much different approach to the character. While the original Spider-Man starring Tobey Maguire and The Amazing Spider-Man starring Andrew Garfield both started off in high school, Spidey's school life wasn't addressed too much. It has been confirmed that Marvel is ditching the Spider-Man origin story involving the radioactive spider, establishing Peter Parker as Spider-Man right away in Captain America: Civil War without revealing how he gained these incredible abilities. It has also been confirmed that Peter Parker will be a sophomore in high school during Spider-Man: Homecoming, with the subsequent sequels in this trilogy likely centering on his junior and senior years of high school, spending much more time at the Midtown School of Science and Technology than its predecessors.

Tom Holland's Spider-Man has already been confirmed for Avengers: Infinity War, while Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige recently confirmed that Spider-Man is also returning in the final Marvel Phase 4 movie, Avengers 4. Kevin Feige has previously teased that the studio has big plans for Spider-Man, while Tom Holland has teased that he has signed on for six movies, his Spider-Man trilogy, plus Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers 4, which leaves one mystery movie left to round out the actor's Marvel deal. It's unclear what this movie may be, but it will likely happen in Marvel Phase 4, which will kick off with three undisclosed movies in 2020, debuting on May 1, 2020, August 7, 2020 and November 6, 2020. Hopefully we'll have more on Spider-Man: Homecoming as we get closer to the July 7 release date.